


Idol

by sciencefictioness



Category: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, Face-Fucking, Fight Sex, Hate Sex, M/M, Mutual Pining, Rough Sex, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:53:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23861119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: Wolf looks better on his knees than anywhere else.Wolf looks the same as always; expectant.  A little bit ragged.  Genichiro just likes to see him there, prostrated and obedient.It isn’t revelatory in the way Genichiro expects—  Genichiro isn’t the one who put him there, and instead of the rush of victory, there is only a hollow feeling in his chest.  Wolf is looking up at him from the ground, something almost derisive simmering in his eyes.  They glow in the half-light, eerie and golden.  They’re inhuman.They’re beautiful.“I am at your service, my lord.”It isn’t sneering, but it’s close.It is what Genichiro wants, but they’ve both taken too much from one another for this to be anything but sullen.“Are you, shinobi?” Genichiro asks, his lip curled.  Wolf is still holding his gaze, hands on his thighs, shoulders back.“Anything you need,” is what Wolf says.Anything you are too weak to do yourself,is what Genichiro hears.He needs Wolf to save Ashina; it tastes sour in his mouth, but he will swallow it to keep his lands safe.  He has swallowed worse than this bitterness.He has given up more than his pride.
Relationships: Genichiro Ashina/Sekiro | Wolf
Comments: 10
Kudos: 188





	Idol

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keio/gifts).



Wolf looks better on his knees than anywhere else.

Wolf looks the same as always; expectant. A little bit ragged. Genichiro just likes to see him there, prostrated and obedient.

It isn’t revelatory in the way Genichiro expects— Genichiro isn’t the one who put him there, and instead of the rush of victory, there is only a hollow feeling in his chest. Wolf is looking up at him from the ground, something almost derisive simmering in his eyes. They glow in the half-light, eerie and golden. They’re inhuman.

They’re beautiful.

“I am at your service, my lord.” 

It isn’t sneering, but it’s close. They both know he is only at Genichiro’s service because Kuro wills it so. Ashina could only bleed so much before Kuro wavered.

Before Kuro yielded,  _ as you wish, lord Genichiro. My shinobi is yours.  _

It is what Genichiro wants, but they’ve both taken too much from one another for this to be anything but sullen.

“Are you, shinobi?” Genichiro asks, his lip curled. Wolf is still holding his gaze, hands on his thighs, shoulders back.

“Anything you need,” is what Wolf says. 

_ Anything you are too weak to do yourself,  _ is what Genichiro hears. 

He needs Wolf to save Ashina; it tastes sour in his mouth, but he will swallow it to keep his lands safe. He has swallowed worse than this bitterness.

He has given up more than his pride.

“All I need is your sword,” Genichiro spits, turning to go with a scowl etched into his features. “And your silence.”

Both of those things come easy to Wolf. Genichiro leaves him there on his knees.

He is used to carrying the weight of Ashina, but he can’t bear the sight of him.

-

Wolf is unobtrusive as he settles into the castle with his master, but it is like filth that has been stitched into a wound. Genichiro doesn’t see him, doesn’t hear him, but he can feel him there; it’s sore, and it grates, and Genichiro fights the urge to rid himself of Wolf with every passing moment. 

It would not be easy, and it would hurt, but it would feel so good when he was done. 

Genichiro cannot. Not now, not ever. There is no distant future when he will be done with all this, no quiet end to the violence surrounding him.

He is not foolish enough to think that Ashina will ever truly be safe. Genichiro will fight until he cannot anymore, and one day the waters will not bring him back. All he can do is give Ashina a chance. Make it strong, so that it might stand when he is gone.

When Wolf is gone. If Wolf is ever gone. Genichiro isn’t sure he can die, even with whatever plans they had been trying to make before Kuro yielded.

When Ashina is dust and ashes, Wolf will be here all alone, haunting her. It would be a comfort if Genichiro didn’t covet it for himself.

He will never be done with Wolf.

One day, Genichiro will be nothing but bones, and Wolf will be done with him instead.

-

The Ministry finds them again. It doesn’t take long. 

They think they have the advantage, so they push hard and wait for Ashina to topple. They would be right, except now there is Wolf. Genichiro doesn’t know what he expects— if Wolf will hesitate. If he will falter.

If he is simply waiting for the right moment to betray them, when there are too many Ministry troops for them to handle and Ashina can do nothing but crumble under their weight. There is a moment when the Ministry starts hammering at their defenses, assassins wreaking havoc behind their walls. Wolf is by Genichiro’s side, eyes glowing that ethereal gold when the light hits them just right. 

There is a moment when he is still, and silent, and Genichiro thinks he has made another foolish mistake. Wolf will not fight for Ashina.

Wolf will fight for Kuro, and nothing else.

Then the moment snaps, and shatters, and Wolf is cutting through the Ministry like a blade through water. They spill around him, falling in sprays of red. The carnage Wolf carries with him is enrapturing. 

It takes longer than Genichiro would like to tear his gaze away. 

“Lord Genichiro.”

It’s one of his generals, standing just behind him and waiting for his command.

“Go,” Genichiro replies, and all of Ashina’s swords pour after Wolf onto the battlefield.

Genichiro wades into the fray alongside them. Gyobu is tearing through the Ministry’s ranks in the distance, Onikage’s hoofbeats thundering against the ground. The nightjar flit over the rooftops, stopping the Ministry shadows where they would otherwise start picking off soldiers from the back line. He presses forward to where the fighting is the thickest, skilled Ministry swordsman cutting through Genichiro’s men far too quickly. 

There is a rightness to it; in standing against all of Ashina’s enemies, ready to bring them down. Genichiro steels himself, a wall of soldiers surging forwards to meet him. It is where he needs to be, where he belongs; Wolf is there, too, of course. 

Wolf is everywhere— his katana slicing through flesh, his shuriken sinking into bone. There’s the loud slamming of his axe, and the unearthly green fog of Sabimaru swirling in the midst of the throng. He is on the rooftops. He is on the ground. He is soaring through the air, body twisting gracefully, before landing on a cannoneer and burying his blade in their heart. 

Wolf is always moving in the corner of Genichiro’s vision, catching his eye; in the path of his arrows, on the other side of his next sword thrust. Wolf is not just in the middle of things.

Wolf is in the  _ way. _

They are targeting the same enemies without meaning to, each of them seeking the biggest threat and running it down, often to the detriment of the other. Genichiro ducks under a shuriken, once, and pins Wolf with a glare. Wolf deflects an arrow, and looks at him with a raised eyebrow. 

They are stumbling over one another in their eagerness to end lives. Their instincts lead them to the most dangerous foes, the ones most likely to whittle down Ashina’s forces.

Their instincts lead them to each other, again, and again, and again. Wolf staggers through a landing to avoid Genichiro’s sword as he is gutting an enemy general. Genichiro pulls his blade back to keep from burying it in both Wolf and a Ministry rifleman. 

Even tripping over one another as they are, the fighting finishes quickly. The Ministry falls back, vanishing into the forest to regroup; their forces aren’t prepared to lay siege to Ashina, at least not today. Genichiro’s men don’t follow— they don’t have the numbers to do it safely, and they need every soldier they can get at the castle right now.

His men don’t follow, but Wolf does, disappearing into the trees like a predator slinking after prey. There’s the faraway sound of men screaming, growing fainter until it disappears entirely as Wolf stalks them out of range. Genichiro can’t join him. It rankles. 

He isn’t made for stealth— he is too big, his fighting style too direct, and the fact that Wolf can pursue his enemies where he cannot is quietly infuriating. 

If there is blood to be spilled for Ashina, Genichiro wants to spill it. 

He grits his teeth and swallows the anger. Holds onto it. Lets it smolder, an ember seething and ready to catch fire. Genichiro isn’t patient, but he can wait.

Wolf will be back sooner or later to bear the heat of it.

-

“You were a liability today,” Genichiro sneers, looking down at Wolf where he’s sitting cross-legged on the ground in the quarters he shares with Kuro. 

Wolf’s weapons are spread out in front of him, along with pouches of sugars, and a jar of oil, and a dozen other things, not all of which Genichiro can identify. Kuro sits on his bedroll nearby, his book resting forgotten in his lap. He watches the two of them with furrowed brows, like he wants to speak but isn’t sure what to say. A flare of emotion crosses Wolf’s face— Genichiro isn’t well-versed enough in the nuances of his expressions to know what it means. Irritation maybe, as though Genichiro is an annoyance.

Then it smoothes out, and Wolf is as blank as always. His hair is damp from a recent bath, hanging loose around his face. He’s dressed in nothing but his haori, armor piled up beside him, his feet bare. It is more skin than Genichiro is used to seeing. The illusion of vulnerability, when he could end Genichiro in an instant. Wolf is vicious.

Wolf is gorgeous. 

Wolf is infuriating, even when he hasn’t said a thing.

“My apologies, my lord, but I don’t know what you mean.”

It is not sarcastic, not outright, but even Kuro tenses. Genichiro bares his teeth, hands clenching into fists at his sides.

“I cannot fight the Ministry with you underfoot, hindering me every step of the way.”

Wolf’s eyes narrow, fingers gripping the whetstone in his hand tighter, but only for a moment. 

“I am here to serve you, lord Genichiro. Please tell me how to do that, if not with a sword.”

It’s not suggestive.

It doesn’t matter. Genichiro hates the thoughts that come to him unbidden; all the ways Wolf could serve him that don’t involve a blade. His lip curls back from his teeth, eyes flaring red of their own volition.

The way they do when he yearns for something he cannot have.

They way they do when he has failed.

“I want you to do as you are told without getting in the way of my sword. I want you to fight for me, not against me. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not one of my arrows is going to hit you instead of my target. Surely even a shinobi knows that.”

Genichiro says  _ shinobi  _ the same way he would say  _ dog  _ when one was being particularly ill-tempered.

Wolf is quiet, but his eyes are not, lit with a furor that Genichiro knows is mirrored in his own. He doesn’t need to say a word.

His hatred is evident, shimmering gold behind his irises as he sets down his whetstone and closes his fingers around Kusabimaru’s hilt. It’s an absent gesture; Wolf reaching for the comfort of his weapon when Genichiro stokes the flame in him.

Kuro speaks up before either of them get the chance to break the silence, standing next to Wolf with his hands up as though to placate Genichiro.

“It is the first time you’ve fought side by side, instead of against each other. It is only natural that it takes some getting used to, don’t you think? You’ve been adversaries more often than allies. I’m sure it will be easier in time, with practice.”

Kuro looks so earnest, Genichiro cannot help but sneer again.

“Practice,” he says flatly.

Kuro smiles, strained but genuine.

“Do you not still train, lord Genichiro? Perhaps if Wolf joined you, it would be a simple matter of learning how to move with one another.”

There are so many ways for him to move with Wolf, and only most of them end in violence. Genichiro breathes in deep, and lets it out slowly.

“Tomorrow. In the evening.” Genichiro turns to go, mouth twisted in a frown. “I have more important matters to attend to than a poorly trained shinobi, so it will have to wait until then.”

The castle is hushed that night, only the sounds of guards and the whistle of the nightjar outside. 

Genichiro doesn’t need to see Wolf to feel him there. It throbs, and stings.

He doesn’t sleep, but that is nothing new.

-

Cleaning up after a battle will take more than a day, but the bodies have been burned and the castle’s defenses are well on their way to being repaired. Genichiro walks the perimeter and consults with his generals.

Any time he bothers looking, Wolf is on the rooftops with the nightjar. If they are talking Genichiro cannot tell. This time he seems to be walking them through a particular parrying move, all of them so agile it is almost frightening. They are not as graceful as Wolf, but that is not their fault.

No one moves like Wolf; it is better that way.

One of him is more than enough.

After dinner he finds Wolf kneeling in the dojo, all alone with most of his gear nowhere to be seen. Genichiro left his behind as well— his blade, his bow, his arrows. The urge to use them against Wolf would be overwhelming, and if they shed one another’s blood in earnest, Kuro will be sorely displeased. If he hurts Wolf badly enough, deliberately, Kuro might change his mind about helping Ashina and withdraw his aid.

That he is beholden to the whims of a child leaves a bitter taste in Genichiro’s mouth, but he breathes through it, and swallows it down. There is nothing else to be done, and dwelling on it will only make him angrier.

  
  


“Without weapons, then,” Genichiro says. He isn’t sure that sparring together will help them in a battle, but Wolf will do anything Kuro suggests without question, no matter how useless. His obedience is absolute, even if it is also performative. Wolf shrugs from his spot on the floor, not bothering to raise his eyes.

“It makes no difference to me, my lord.”

Genichiro reads the unspoken things in between all the respectful lines of Wolf’s responses— he doesn’t need his weapons to handle Genichiro. There is enough strength in him; enough speed, enough skill.

There is enough brutality to carry Wolf through without steel.

Wolf’s forced politeness is grating enough when they are around Kuro and Genichiro’s generals. Here in the dojo, with only the two of them present, Genichiro cannot bear it any longer.

“Your  _ lord  _ is not here, you need not pretend with me. I know you don’t hold me in such high regard.” 

Not that Genichiro blames him, really; especially at night, in the quiet of his room, as he thinks about kidnapping a boy who is the closest thing to family Genichiro has left. Locking him away in a tower, waiting for him to yield. Sometimes, Genichiro is proud.

Sometimes, he cannot afford it.

Wolf rises to his feet and cracks his knuckles.

“Are you certain about that,  _ my lord?”  _ His eyes flicker yellow. His teeth look sharp.

“Don’t trifle with me, shinobi.”

The corner of Wolf’s mouth twitches.

“I’m afraid that’s all I can do. There is nothing here but trifling things, and trifling people.”

It’s spoken so calmly; Genichiro has never wanted to put a sword in him more.

“I’d be careful, if I were you.”

Wolf rolls his shoulders, and falls into a crouch.

“If you were me, you wouldn’t need to be careful.”

He’s not smirking, but there’s the ghost of it on his face; all that he will allow himself, rationing out his emotions like they are finite and exhaustible. Genichiro bares his teeth, and snarls, and lunges.

Against any other opponent, Genichiro would have the advantage. He’s tall, and he has strength and reach, along with his training. Years of folding like steel under Isshin’s fists, until they molded him into something wickedly sharp.

Except this is Wolf, and he’s spent just as long being shaped into a weapon, without even the small mercies of Isshin’s fondness. Genichiro never knew Owl all that well; only that Isshin didn’t trust him.

_ Don’t allow yourself to be left alone with him,  _ Isshin had said, and Genichiro had felt an unfamiliar creeping sense of fear. Few things had scared Genichiro as a child; Owl had been one of them. Cold eyes, and rough hands, bigger than a shinobi had any right being.

Isshin loved Genichiro and had trained him brutally, but not without mercy.

Owl had no real love for Wolf, and had forged him with all the grace of a smith’s hammer, uncaring of the way Wolf burned and bent and shattered.

Now, Wolf is something monstrous, even without Kuro’s blood singing through his veins. 

Sparring with him is like fighting an animal. He’s fast, and unpredictable, and any time Genichiro thinks he has a hold on him Wolf slips away, some intangible thing ghosting through his fingers. It’s hard to track his movements, especially without the glint of a sword to draw Genichiro’s eye. Usually Wolf keeps his distance in a fight, but he isn’t afraid to get close when there is nothing at stake.

Not that there is ever anything at stake for either of them, really. Genichiro has Ashina, and Wolf has Kuro, but both of those things are safe for the moment. Their blood doesn’t matter.

Their lives don’t matter; so long as the things they love keep thriving, death is something faraway that has lost all meaning. The waters, and the blood, and their endless determination. Their will to keep coming back makes them powerful.

It makes them reckless. Makes them foolish.

It makes Wolf risk taking blows that would destroy him if they landed. Makes Genichiro lean into Wolf’s fists when he should pull away. 

Wolf is only real in snatches; when Genichiro’s fingers brush over his skin. When Genichiro’s hands close over empty air. They circle one another, making fleeting contact that the other then evades. Wolf’s fights always look like dancing, but the two of them can only dance together for so long. Neither one of them has been entirely human for ages now, but they still tire after a time. Genichiro’s breathing is loud in his own ears. Wolf is sweating, his chest heaving, wispy strands of hair falling down around his face. It thunders, rain threatening outside the window as Genichiro’s frustration takes form in roiling, unnatural storm clouds.

It feels like hours, but has likely only been a few minutes; all out brawls never last very long after all. Exhaustion takes its toll, and they both end up tangled together when Genichiro tackles Wolf roughly to the ground. There is the crack of Genichiro’s ribs splintering. The crunch of Wolf’s nose as the bones give, and fracture. There is blood, and Wolf writhing underneath him, struggling desperately to get free. 

There is a moment when Genichiro expects Wolf to break his grip, and instead Wolf goes boneless beneath him, wrists held still over his head where Genichiro has them pinned. He could have escaped, but he lets Genichiro hold him here— prone but not helpless. 

Wolf is gasping for air with his irises burning gold, hands limp in Genichiro’s grasp. Sharp teeth, and bright eyes, powerful enough tear him to pieces. He arches under Genichiro; he’s hard in his clothes. Hard against  _ Genichiro. _

Wolf rocks his hips forward, holding Genichiro’s gaze with blood trickling out of his nose, his mouth and chin soaked with it. He’s waiting for Genichiro.

He’s  _ daring  _ him. Genichiro hisses, grinding down into Wolf in turn, and it is like a dam has broken. They tear at each other’s clothes, tugging belts free, frantically seeking skin. Wolf slides his palms over Genichiro’s chest, down his stomach, over his arms. No one has put their hands on Genichiro like this in…

No one has  _ ever  _ put their hands on Genichiro like this; carelessly, but with hunger, like it doesn’t matter if Wolf hurts him.

Like Wolf knows he won’t break.

He snarls as he pulls Wolf’s haori open, untying his hakama and jerking them down his thighs with rough tugs. Wolf shoves his hand impatiently through the folds of Genichiro’s shitagi, groaning when his fingers close around Genichiro’s cock. Most of the way around, anyway. His hands are small.

Genichiro is not. Wolf’s touch is rough and he’s still breathless and Genichiro is dizzy with it all. 

Wolf strokes him fast and hard as he kicks one leg free of his hakama so he can throw his thighs wide, shoving two fingers into his mouth before reaching down between them and pressing into himself. He’s far from gentle, working himself open with a few hurried motions before pulling them out to guide the tip of Genichiro’s cock against him.

Then Genichiro is sinking into him, Wolf’s heels digging into his back to urge him faster, nails scraping down his chest. They’re both growling out guttural sounds, Wolf clawing at Genichiro, rolling his hips to take him deeper. It’s hard to breathe with how tight Wolf is around him.

In a way, Genichiro is grateful for the pain.

Wolf bites at Genichiro’s throat; the curve of his shoulder, the meat of his bicep. Some of the bites draw blood, gore dripping from Wolf’s mouth to track down Genichiro’s chest. He drags bruises into his skin and pulls Genichiro’s hair. It is only the way Genichiro is bowed around Wolf that allows him to reach. 

It is all that keeps him from coming then and there. Genichiro lets Wolf take more of his weight, breaths punched out of his lungs almost painfully.

It’s as violent as any fight they’ve ever had, Genichiro fucking him across the floor, Wolf clinging like he’s trying to bury his fingers into Genichiro’s muscle and rip it free from his bones. Wolf is full of aggression, even half-undressed and taking Genichiro’s cock; pink cheeks and a bloody mouth and hair falling down to curl under his jaw. 

Wolf is sickeningly gorgeous in disarray. Genichiro’s stomach twists.

He still can’t stand the sight of him. He pulls out long enough to flip Wolf onto his stomach, one palm flat between his shoulder blades, the other pinning his face against the tatami. Wolf scratches at the mats and moans, lifting his hips high to let Genichiro drive in further. He’s drooling, and shaking.

Genichiro is shaking, too. He pulls out far enough to stare down at where they come together— the clinging drag of Wolf’s skin. The way he takes Genichiro, not easily, but still eagerly.

There’s a messy wet patch on the floor between Wolf’s thighs where he’s already finished once, and something in Genichiro soars with triumph. He keeps going until there’s nothing but white noise in his ears, the dojo filled with the scent of ozone as lightning erupts outside, throwing stuttering shadows on the walls.

Genichiro comes with his teeth bared and his fingers fisted in Wolf’s hair, blackened palm splayed over Wolf’s spine as he trembles through his climax. 

It’s raining when he comes back to himself, water misting through the open windows as thunder rolls over the castle. He still has Wolf pressed tightly against the floor— with his hands, with his weight. Genichiro eases back, pulling out of Wolf with a hiss. 

Wolf rolls over onto his back, haori caught up around his elbows, one knee bent as he sprawls on the floor. Genichiro doesn’t remember biting him, but the imprints of his teeth are there nonetheless, sunk deep into Wolf’s flesh again and again. Some of them are bleeding. Some of them are bruised. There are dark red marks in the unmistakable shape of Genichiro’s mouth, scattered up and down Wolf’s neck and shoulders.

Wolf looks up at Genichiro through lidded eyes, his pupils mostly black; there is only a thin ring of gold around the edge of his pupils. His hair is in his face, chest rising and falling rapidly as he tries to catch his breath. There’s sweat shining on his skin, and blood drying rusty around his lips. He lays a palm over his chest, like he’s measuring the rapid beat of his heart. Genichiro’s own is pounding so hard it hurts.

His come is smeared between Wolf’s thighs, dripping slowly out of him and onto the tatami. Genichiro has the sudden, mindless urge to ask Wolf if he’s alright; it’s almost formed on his tongue, sitting heavy in his mouth when Genichiro bites it back. 

He’s cut off pieces of Wolf. Flesh, and bone. He’s gutted Wolf, and left him bleeding. Taken everything from him, and forced Wolf to take it back.

Genichiro didn’t ask then. He isn’t going to ask now. He gets to his feet, pulling his shitagi closed and tying it in place.

“If we are through trifling, then,” he says, and leaves Wolf laying there, Genichiro’s blood staining his teeth.

The storm outside has come in earnest by the time he lays down in his rooms. The wind howls. It is furious, the way he is furious. Genichiro listens to the rain crashing against the castle walls.

He doesn’t sleep, but that is nothing new.

-

All day long, Genichiro itches. There is something restless in his bones, and he finds it hard to focus while he’s meeting with his generals. Hard to pay attention to his elites, and their talk of supply lines and food shortages. 

He doesn’t see Wolf in the halls or on the rooftops, but the ache is there all the same. Festering under his skin, a soreness that won’t fade. Genichiro’s throat is covered in bruises and ragged wounds from Wolf’s teeth. The waters haven’t healed them like Genichiro expected; they are tender and inflamed. Genichiro remembers being injured before he drank the sediment, every little cut and scratch lingering to remind him of his mistakes. 

Reminding him of Wolf, now. Genichiro has never been one to forget.

He presses his fingers into the curve of his shoulder where one of Wolf’s bites lies and gently traces over the mark. It’s high enough that there’s no way it would have escaped his generals’ notice, but they hadn’t said a word. 

Gyobu had smirked and patted him on the shoulder, hard enough that he’d staggered under the weight of it. Genichiro had scowled, but Gyobu had been bearing his glares for years now, and he simply smiled wider in response and offered Genichiro a drink.

Time passes in a haze. Genichiro does his duty, but everything feels distant. He goes through the motions, checking on the castle’s defenses and talking to his scouts about the Ministry’s movement. They are always moving, but it’s hard to tell what their plan is at the moment, especially with a head full of fog.

Genichiro isn’t truly awake until he steps into the dojo that evening to find Wolf waiting on his knees. Neither of them had mentioned sparring again. They haven’t even seen one another since Genichiro left him there bleeding the previous night.

Wolf sits seiza the way Genichiro breathes— as though it is something he does without thinking. As though he could do it even in his sleep. Wolf was wrought into this; something obedient, waiting on a command. 

Then he sees Genichiro, and the gold flares in his eyes. There are still bruises spreading up and down his throat, enough that it’s obscene, the lurid imprints of Genichiro’s teeth. He hasn’t drank from his gourd, hasn’t eaten those foul pellets shinobi so often favor.

Wolf woke up with Genichiro’s mouth painted in his skin, and left it there.

Genichiro doesn’t know why.

“Again,” Genichiro says. It isn’t a question, but Genichiro waits for an answer.

Wolf doesn’t answer in words.

He swells to his feet all at once, teeth glinting as he grins, and answers with his fists. 

The fighting lasts longer this time; there is less anger and more anticipation. Genichiro knows when Wolf is going to close the distance between them. He’s ready for his feints, can read the lines of his movement better. 

Genichiro is ready when Wolf’s whole body goes slack, and then he buries his teeth in Wolf’s neck, and takes him.

Wolf is no less frenzied the second time around, biting fresh wounds into Genichiro’s flesh whenever he gets close enough. Genichiro puts him on his back, knees pressed to his chest, and fucks him ragged. Genichiro pins his wrists to the ground with one hand, pressing bruises into his hip with the other. Genichiro leaves him sprawled on the floor of the dojo again; clothes torn halfway off, blood under his fingernails, all tangled hair and gasping breaths. They don’t just fall into one another when they spar.

The Ministry comes again, or some of them do, deeper in the outskirts of Ashina. They’re trying to draw Genichiro’s forces out, or maybe just whittle them down. It is a skeleton crew of soldiers, but enough to wreak havoc on the civilians still stubbornly lingering there. The Ministry has chosen their terrain well, and it is far too dangerous for most of Ashina’s fighters. No room to move, no place to retreat. Genichiro doesn’t bring his army.

Genichiro just brings Wolf; because he is expendable.

Because he isn’t.

He picks off the Ministry soldiers one at a time for what feels like an age before they realize he is there, then everything is chaos and screaming and the ring of steel. The boom of canons, the scent of gunpowder. 

Ashes, and blood, and ozone, as Ashina is always meant to be.

Genichiro rains down lightning on them. Sometimes Wolf is in the way.

Now he takes the blows anyway, and sends them back against the Ministry forces. Lightning coils along his blade, crackling with hunger. Wolf hovers in the air for a moment that drags on forever, electricity arcing through his sword, Genichiro’s power thrumming and ready to explode. It is captivating.

It is perilous.

Then Wolf throws it out into the fray. Men seize and fall to the ground bleeding, and it is rapturous.

Wolf taking pieces of Genichiro to make himself stronger is the most devastating thing he’s ever seen.

“Can’t fight for yourself, shinobi?” Genichiro sneers, and Wolf makes a face that might be a smile. It’s gone fast enough that Genichiro isn’t sure it was there at all.

“Not with you making things difficult,” he says, and flicks the blood off his blade.

Genichiro calls the lightning down again. 

When everyone is dead, Wolf tackles him to the ground, both of them grasping at one another. Wolf tugs at Genichiro’s clothes, nothing left but his shitagi after so much heresy. Genichiro fumbles with the leather ties that hold Wolf’s weapons in place. They’re worn, and delicate, and Genichiro almost tears them apart in his hurry. 

They fuck in the dirt, covered in blood, Genichiro’s fingers leaving black, charred smears on Wolf’s skin. On his wrists, around his throat.

There is a streak of ash on his cheekbone, as though Genichiro dragged his thumb across it. He doesn’t remember touching Wolf’s face, but the urge is there again. To cup his cheek. To ease gentle fingers in his hair. Genichiro swallows it down.

It rains, blood soaking into the earth, bodies strewn through the woods around them. 

Again, and again.

Every night spent at the castle, throwing themselves at one another in the dojo. Every day in the field, the Ministry swarming them like flies. They finish fighting, adrenaline surging through them like Genichiro’s lightning, until he can feel it in his teeth. 

Genichiro finds himself reaching for Wolf without fail. It has become second nature.   
  


There is blood, and the drugging rush of power, and then Wolf is in his arms. Wolf is sharp edges and gnashing teeth and nails in Genichiro’s skin. Wolf is heat and warmth and endless shuddering bliss. It is addictive; the moment when they’ve both shaken through it all and lay there, tangled up and panting. Genichiro keeps wanting to lean into it. To linger there.

Genichiro gets up and leaves Wolf behind instead. 

There is nothing soft in him, and if there was, Wolf certainly would not want it.

-

The cold breaks, easing to let spring creep over Ashina. Without the snows to hold their forces back, the Ministry starts coming at them again, and in greater numbers. There are skirmishes on the edges of the territory, smaller forces sent to try and breach the gate. They seem to be at a loss as to how they should proceed, attempting different things to see if they can gain some ground; it is likely they expected Ashina to fall well before now.

It would have, if Wolf wasn’t fighting.

The next time the Ministry tries to take the castle, they push hard. They have a horde of dogs running Gyobu and Onikage in circles outside the gates, and assassins crawling over the rooftops, trying to open them from within. There are bells ringing everywhere, alarms sounding, the din of gunfire. 

There is no fear in Genichiro as there once might have been. Ashina will be safe, and it has been years since he really understood what it was to be worried about death; he will die again. He will come back again.

It isn’t simple, but it feels that way. 

Now when there is the promise of violence, something lustful swells in Genichiro. An ingrained response, sunk so deep he cannot fathom trying to stop it. He fights, and Wolf is there by his side.

They win, and Wolf is on his back, thighs spread and back arched, eating Genichiro alive.

The fear is gone as the Ministry struggles in vain to overtake them, but there is still blood to shed. Genichiro has been firing from the roof of the castle, picking off stray assassins. When they’ve rooted out all the Ministry troops inside the walls he will go and help Gyobu and his men, but the biggest threat must always come first, and all their efforts to defend the gates will be in vain if these assassins manage to open them. He nocks an arrow and takes aim— there is a streak of purple near the tower lookout, an assassin running over the roof tiles. Genichiro draws, and fires.

Just before his arrow sinks home, there is a flash of steel, and the assassin falls to their knees with a shuriken buried in their throat. None of his nightjar are anywhere close— they’re caught up on the other side of the castle grounds, and the shuriken had glittered strangely as it arced through the air. Only one person has shuriken like that.

He doesn’t see Wolf anywhere, but another shuriken flies out of nowhere when he fires at an assassin on the next roof over. It happens a third time, and a fourth.

Wolf is picking off Genichiro’s targets one by one.

He wishes it was only anger that roared through him at the realization, but there is something else. There is want, and anticipation.

There is the thought of finding Wolf later and making him pay; the knowledge that Wolf will  _ let  _ him. That Wolf wants him furious, and aggressive. 

That Wolf wants it to  _ hurt. _

It is a long time before Genichiro has a moment to breathe. When he heads into his quarters after bathing, Wolf is there, still bloody from the fighting. At the sight of Genichiro he drops to his knees like a stone, gold-eyed and expectant. He licks his lips, and lets them part.

Genichiro crosses the room in a few short strides and buries a hand in Wolf’s hair, pulling at the ties of his own clothes with the other. He lowers himself to his knees as well, holding the base of his cock and jerking Wolf’s face down into his lap. Wolf goes without protest, opening his mouth wider; it isn’t docility.

It is hunger. He’s been waiting for this, baiting Genichiro into it.

Begging for it the only way he knows how to do anything; with death, and silence.

Genichiro feeds his cock between Wolf’s lips, further and further, until he’s gagging around it. Until he’s choking, and drooling, eyes watering as he scratches at Genichiro’s thighs. His throat bulges, and opens— there is too much of Genichiro, but Wolf swallows him all.

Genichiro fists Wolf’s hair in both hands and fucks his face, reveling in the little whimpering noises he makes. The way that after a while his hands go limp, and his muscles relax, and he simply takes everything Genichiro has to give with glassy eyes and an open mouth.

He comes down Wolf’s throat with a groan, holding him in place as he shivers through it, Wolf writhing weakly as he chokes and swallows. Wolf looks up at him through wet lashes, tears streaming down his face, come leaking from the corner of his mouth where Genichiro is still buried. His fingers are shaky when he brushes some of Wolf’s hair out of his eyes, petting gently through the strands before he can stop himself. He eases him off. Runs a thumb over his slick mouth. He’s filthy.

He’s gorgeous. Fondness thrums in Genichiro’s stomach, shuddering in his bones.

Genichiro is falling into something unfathomable, and the waters will not be able to bring him back.

He shoves Wolf away with a hand on his chest, forcing him to sprawl backwards and catch himself on his elbows. His hakama are messy, damp in the front. He hadn’t touched himself.

Genichiro had fucked his face, and Wolf had come in his clothes. 

Wolf looks almost wounded, blinking up at Genichiro in confusion as he wipes a stray drop of come off his chin with his knuckles. The soft uncertainty hardens into something bitter as Genichiro watches, and he gets to his feet and straightens his haori.

“If that’s all,  _ my lord,”  _ he says, and vanishes out onto the rooftops.

Genichiro wants to go after him.

Genichiro wants to scream.

Genichiro lays down on his bedroll and throws an arm over his face. His room smells like blood, and sex, and Wolf. Genichiro does not sleep.

It is nothing new.

-

Emma insists on checking him over the next day, to make sure the waters are doing their job, and help them along if they aren’t. She has a lot more time on her hands now that Isshin is gone. 

As he gets closer to her quarters he hears voices murmuring to one another; Emma.

Wolf.

“These are not from the battle yesterday.” Wolf hums but is otherwise silent, and Emma is too polite to press. “It would be a simple thing to heal this, Wolf.”

Not lord Wolf, or shinobi. Just  _ Wolf.  _ The familiarity is easy enough to make Genichiro frown.

“They are trifling injuries. It is nothing serious.”

Genichiro bristles even though Wolf is right. Some shallow bite marks. Bruises that are skin deep, and nothing more. Emma makes a noise, like she’s sucking air through her teeth.

“It cannot be comfortable to fight like this,” Emma says. 

Genichiro steps into the doorway to see Wolf shrugging his haori back on, his body covered in Genichiro’s marks. They’re scattered over his chest and shoulders, spread across his ribs, curling around his throat. Wolf glances up and finds Genichiro staring as he finishes dressing.

“It is good to feel them,” he says, holding Genichiro’s gaze. He wraps his scarf around his neck, concealing the worst of the bruises. “It reminds me of my mistakes.”

Genichiro flinches; it draws Emma’s eye, and Wolf uses the distraction to duck out of the room from the open window, leaving them both staring after him. Emma faces him as though ready to speak, but Genichiro is gone, back out the door before she gets a chance. His wounds are no worse than Wolf’s. Trifling things, he’d said.

Nothing serious.

The dojo is empty that evening, more vacant than it’s ever been. Genichiro stares at the place where Wolf usually kneels, hands clenched into fists.

Then he turns, and goes. Lays down in his bedroll. Stares at the ceiling.

He runs his fingers over Wolf’s teeth in his skin. Presses them into the bruises he left behind. Where there once was hatred in him, there is something worse, now. There is fondness.

There is longing. 

The Ministry can’t come soon enough.

At least then, Genichiro will know what to do.

-

The bells ring out a few days later. Genichiro has only seen Wolf from a distance, speaking with Kuro or patrolling the nightjar paths on the rooftops. Never in the dojo.

Never in Genichiro’s rooms. They haven’t touched in almost a week, and it is almost agonizing. Genichiro feels pathetic.

Genichiro feels  _ weak. _

Genichiro stops Wolf before he flees out a window and into the fight, shoving a leather pouch into his hands.

“Since you can’t seem to take care of yourself,” he says. Lies.

Wolf needs sugars the way Genichiro needs lightning; they make him stronger, but he is just as deadly without them. It’s not like his gourd, or his prosthetic, or his katana.

It isn’t a useless gesture, but it is mostly for Genichiro’s own sake. 

It isn’t an apology, but only because he can’t say the words.

Wolf squeezes the bag between his fingers, feeling the contents, cocking his head to the side. He glances quickly inside; there are dozens of sugars there, in a half dozen different colors. Deep blues, eerie greens, bright yellows. Wolf looks at the sugars, then back at Genichiro as he tucks them into his clothes.

“If that is the case, perhaps you should have kept some.”

There’s not a smile on his face, but there is something close to it in his voice; a teasing lilt that Genichiro wouldn’t have recognized even a month ago, but now is unmistakable. Wolf is gone out the window without another word, and Genichiro is running down the stairs. 

There’s smoke, and blood, and lighting; everything is as it should be, as long as Ashina is not in flames.

-

His gaze keeps alighting on Wolf as the battle rages on around them. He fights beautifully, as always, but there is something different about it. Where he might usually evade, he steps closer to his enemies instead and breaks their guards with brutal strikes that remind Genichiro of the Ashina style more than Wolf’s own. He jumps with his katana held in both hands and slams it down into his opponent. 

In brief little snatches, in transitory moments, it isn’t like watching Wolf move.

It is like looking in a mirror. Wolf has spent so much time fighting against him; he’s taken all the best parts and turned it against their enemies. Watching Wolf move like him is…

Genichiro doesn’t know. It makes him warm all over, hard in his clothes and eager to have Wolf under his hands. It makes him dizzy. It makes him breathless.

It makes him ache, in ways that only Wolf has ever managed, and it is an effort to make himself look away.

It’s not only Wolf moving like Genichiro, he realizes, as he ducks under a blow from a Ministry assassin that surely would have landed once upon a time. He is quicker, his reactions coming more easily. He dodges where he would have attacked, evades where he might have previously closed the distance on an enemy. The Ministry assassins are fast, but they are not as fast as Wolf.

Wolf has made him faster. He has made Wolf stronger.

Genichiro doesn’t let himself think on it. 

There will be time for it later, when the castle is sleeping and he is looking through the windows at the stars.

-

Wolf is in the dojo again that evening, on his knees like always, but his hands are not empty. 

He’s got Genichiro’s sword laid over his lap, running a whetstone over it in long, careful strokes. His brows are furrowed in concentration; he’s so focused he doesn’t notice Genichiro’s arrival. 

“You need not trouble yourself with such things,” Genichiro says. “I have men to take care of my weapons for me.” Wolf doesn’t startle, but it’s closer than Genichiro has ever seen; his muscles twitch, and he glances up at Genichiro with a glare before letting his eyes settle on the blade again.

“Your men are polishing it wrong and ruining the steel,” he says, letting his fingers linger almost adoringly over the blade. “Few people are given such fine weapons. To see them destroyed by carelessness would be a waste.”

His hands start moving, the stone sliding meticulously down the blade. Wolf looks almost entranced, lost in the motions, like he is miles away.

“Are we not sparring tonight?” Genichiro says. It feels like it’s been ages.

It isn’t the sparring he’s missed. Wolf glances up again, dark eyes flaring gold as they look Genichiro up and down. The quiet stretches between them, full enough of unspoken things that Genichiro shifts beneath the weight.

“When I am finished,” Wolf replies finally, gaze drifting down to the steel again. “If you don’t mind waiting.”

Genichiro doesn’t, even if he should. He is not used to being kept waiting. 

He sits down next to Wolf, close enough to watch him work. Closer than is necessary. His eyes follow Wolf’s hands for a long while, until they are suddenly too heavy to keep open. Genichiro lays down on his side, curled up behind Wolf, not quite touching any part of him. There’s the sound of Wolf’s whetstone on Genichiro’s sword, soft and rhythmic.

Then there is nothing at all. 

Genichiro sleeps, and wakes up to Wolf leaning over him with a frown, a palm sliding up Genichiro’s bicep.

“You shouldn’t sleep here, Genichiro.”

Genichiro. 

If Wolf has ever said his name without disdain before this moment, Genichiro can’t remember. 

He doesn’t know how long he was sleeping, but his sword is put away, along with all of Wolf’s tools. Everything is soft around the edges, most of the candles in the dojo blown out. There is one still flickering in the corner, painting everything in stark shadows. Genichiro feels liquid. Feels languid. 

It feels like forever since he rested so easily. He wonders how long Wolf sat here in the dark with him, listening to him breathe, hands moving painstakingly over Genichiro’s sword. Wolf’s eyes are golden, brows drawn together in some expression Genichiro cannot read. It’s got nothing to do with the darkness.

Genichiro just doesn’t understand.

He pulls Wolf down against him, tucking his face into the curve of Wolf’s throat and holding him in place. Wolf feels so good. Smells so good. Tastes so good, when Genichiro parts his lips and licks over his skin.

Genichiro rolls Wolf onto his back and slides down the length of him, stopping when he is settled between his thighs to tug at the ties on his clothes. It is easy, now; Genichiro is an old hand at getting Wolf undressed. He is only half-hard when Genichiro swallows him down, Wolf making a punched out noise of surprise and tugging at Genichiro’s hair, but that doesn’t last long.

He takes his time, but there is no teasing, either. Genichiro works Wolf steadily, arms curling around his thighs from underneath to keep him still. It doesn’t work; Wolf writhes, and arches, and shakes. Bites down on his hand like it will keep him quiet, but Wolf is louder in moments like this than he is taking a knife, or a bullet. Like it hurts more.

Like it’s dangerous.

Wolf comes into Genichiro’s mouth with a broken whine, mumbling out what might be his name, except that it’s gasped around his fingers and Genichiro can’t quite make it out. It is a long time before Wolf goes quiet and stops shivering, but when he does Genichiro tucks him back into his clothes. His head is still in Wolf’s lap, his arms still curled around his thighs. Wolf lets his palm hover for a long while before resting it lightly on Genichiro’s hair.

“Do you want me to—”

Genichiro shakes his head and closes his eyes.

What he wants is to sleep. Genichiro is terrified that it came so easily because Wolf was near, but if that is what it takes, he is willing to ask. In the end, he doesn’t have to say anything.

After a few minutes, Wolf lays down on the floor, his hand still resting hesitantly on Genichiro’s hair. It feels like hours before he moves it, petting slowly through the strands, as though Genichiro might recoil. He tilts his head into it. His breathing is unsteady.

Sleep comes again, faster and harder than before, and with teeth that don’t let go.

Wolf is gone when he wakes, but he can’t have been gone long.

Genichiro is still warm.

-

It is the second time they’ve headed out together, just the two of them slipping out the back of Ashina castle and into the wilderness. 

Some of his scouts have gone missing, failing to check in after a routine patrol. The men sent to find them never returned, either; Genichiro doesn’t know if it’s the Ministry that got to them, or something more mundane, but he can’t keep losing men in his own territory. He needs to know what’s lurking there, killing off his people and lying in wait for more.

Wolf ranges out ahead of him, moving through the trees faster than Genichiro is capable of, branching out in different directions then circling back again. The valleys here are treacherous at the best of times, let alone with the Ministry creeping around. Genichiro doesn’t hear anything more than the rustling of leaves or the creaking of branches, but he comes across scattered corpses of monkeys as he moves forward, all of them with a single stab wound in their throats leaking gore onto the ground.

Hours pass this way, Genichiro picking his way through as quickly as he can, Wolf clearing out anything that might slow him down. For a long while there is silence, only Genichiro’s steps, and the quiet rhythm of his own breathing. The peace of Ashina in stolen, transitory moments. The wind, and the rippling of toxic waters.

Then there is the boom of gunfire up ahead, and the noise of too much steel. 

Then there is the sound of Wolf taking a bullet, taking a blade, taking a blow; a breathy, guttural exhale that Genichiro knows by heart. Genichiro is running. Genichiro is drawing his bow.

Genichiro is sliding into a clearing with an arrow nocked, and there are Ministry troops  _ everywhere.  _ Assassins in the trees, riflemen along the valley walls, soldiers with swords spread out along the ground. They clearly weren’t ready for Wolf, but neither was Wolf ready for them. There are at least a dozen dead bodies amongst the trees, Wolf arcing through the air to alight on a branch and take a swig of his gourd before diving back down onto an unsuspecting soldier.

It would have been easier if Wolf had disengaged and found Genichiro before rushing in on his own. They could have made a plan of attack, figured out how to handle this together. Wolf is moving well enough, but Genichiro can see him bleeding from several wounds already, leaking through his armor and staining his haori in vivid red. 

Genichiro rains down arrows, drawing his sword whenever someone gets too close, throwing punches when they foolishly try to push into his space. It would be better to take off his armor and pull down lightning, but Genichiro barely has time to breathe and he can’t leave Wolf alone in this fight. He watches Wolf take swigs of his gourd now and then. Watches him crouch on a branch and lift it to his lips, only to find it empty. 

Wolf wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sifts through one of his pouches, shoving a handful of pellets between his lips along with some kind of sugar. 

One that Genichiro gave him, a bright, syrupy yellow. He leaps back into the fight, still bleeding freely, pupils wide and black from the sugar. There’s blood on his hands, blood on his face. He looks inhuman.

He looks beautiful.

They’ve whittled the enemies down until only a few remain, but Wolf is staggering on his feet, pausing to lean against trees before lifting Kusabimaru in trembling hands. He’s fighting one of the last few swordsmen when there’s a blur of purple overhead— an assassin who’d been waiting high in the branches above them, katana poised to slice cleanly through Wolf’s neck from behind.

Poised to kill  _ Wolf,  _ and all Genichiro can think is that he isn’t allowed. 

That he isn’t worthy.

No one can take Wolf from him, especially not an assassin working for the Ministry. They are trying to take Ashina. They are trying to take his shinobi.

They are trying to take everything, but he will take them, first.

Genichiro is standing between the assassin and Wolf before he has even decided to move, intercepting the blow with a rough exhale. It hits his ribs, glancing along the bone. The steel is sharp, and it sinks deep. Genichiro hisses, teeth bared.

Then he is lifting the assassin by the throat, and squeezing as they dangle from his hand. They claw at his fingers, their legs kicking uselessly. Their sword is still buried in his ribcage.

Genichiro slams them into the ground. Picks them up and does it again. Again, and again, until they are nothing but broken bones and worthless meat. Their skull is cracked open, neck hanging at a strange angle. He throws them down and turns to find Wolf staring, leaning against a tree with his arm wrapped around his stomach. 

The rest of the Ministry troops are dead. Wolf is  _ almost  _ dead, but there is enough energy left for him to look at Genichiro with wide, black eyes. 

“Is that all of them?” Genichiro asks. He hopes they are all dead.

He hopes they are not, because his hands itch, and his muscles ache, and Genichiro is not done killing. Wolf lets out a rough breath. When he opens his mouth to speak blood pours out of it, misting in a fine spray as he begins coughing.

Genichiro picks him up like a new bride and starts walking. Wolf weighs nothing at all. They passed an outcropping of rock earlier that will work well enough to keep them hidden for a while, and Genichiro carries him there with a scowl on his face, fingers digging too tightly into Wolf’s thigh, into his bicep. He sets him down onto the mossy stone, glaring as he begins to pull off Wolf’s armor. His hands are shaking, but if he works fast enough, it is hard to tell.

“What were you thinking,” he hisses, tugging roughly at Wolf’s haori, struggling with his chain mail. “Running in there all alone. You should have waited for me. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

Genichiro realizes the foolishness of what he’s saying before it has even left his mouth, but the sentiment is still there. The seething frustration. Wolf blinks at him in confusion, brows drawn together.

“And if I had?” Wolf asks, voice rough like it hurts to talk.

Genichiro doesn’t meet his eyes, rifling through Wolf’s gear to find his paltry medical supplies. There’s a gaping slash across one side of Wolf’s chest, and another high on his thigh. Smaller cuts criss-cross his arms, his hands, his face. 

If he died, it would be of no consequence. Wolf would come back, stronger than before, everything healed and whole. Wolf could die a thousand times, and heal the rot that flowed out into the world, and it wouldn’t matter at all.

Except Genichiro would have to watch. Would have to hear, would have to feel. 

For a few seconds that felt like hours, Wolf would be so far away. Right then with Wolf next to him, bleeding slowly with labored breaths, he can’t bear the thought of it. Genichiro wants to be sick.

Genichiro is sick already. There is something wrong with him, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop.

He isn’t gentle when he digs bullets out of Wolf’s skin with the sharp tip of his knife. Wolf grits his teeth but he doesn’t make a sound. Genichiro stitches the worst of his wounds up with the needle and thread Emma packed away for them. He is certain she would be unhappy with his work, but he does his best; when he’s finished Wolf isn’t flayed open any more, and that is good enough. 

“There isn’t time to get back to the castle before sunset,” Genichiro says. “We will rest here until morning.” They’re losing the light; it is yet another thing that doesn’t matter.

Wolf can see better in the dark, but Genichiro is tired, and Wolf is barely awake. Barely alive. It is still cold at night, but he doesn’t make a fire. If there are any more Ministry troops out there, he doesn’t want to draw their attention. Genichiro fills their gourds from a nearby stream and lays on his side next to Wolf to block the wind. He wants to pull him closer, but he’s afraid it will hurt. 

Whether it’s Wolf’s wounds he wants to be careful with, or himself, Genichiro doesn’t know. 

When he is sure Wolf is sleeping, he buries his face in his hair.

-

There’s another group of Ministry soldiers creeping around the next morning, at least as big as the one they’d cut through the previous day, but Wolf sleeps straight through as they move past the outcropping of rock where the two of them are tucked away unseen. Genichiro has neither the arrows nor the inclination to engage them right then, not with Wolf curled into his chest seeking warmth and sleeping like the dead. They can come back after they’ve resupplied, when Wolf is in better shape for a fight. He watches them disappear back into the valley, nosing through Wolf’s hair, one hand on his bow in case they spot them in the darkness.

It’s well past sunrise when Wolf finally stirs, slow to wake in a way that belies just how badly he was wounded. He presses into Genichiro first, breathing in like there is something comforting in his scent. Something other than sweat, and blood, and ozone. Then he pulls back all at once, blinking through his drowsiness and murmuring an apology.

_ I am sorry,  _ and Genichiro wants to tell him not to be, but he is sorry, too. Sorry Wolf has to move. Sorry they must go.

Sorry he cannot always sleep with Wolf curled into his chest, fingers clutching at Genichiro’s clothes.

They make it back to the castle just after midday. Thanks to Emma’s gourd Wolf is mostly healed when they return, though he is still moving like he’s sore. They didn’t find the bodies of Genichiro’s scouts, but it’s clear enough what happened. He briefs his generals, Wolf lingering along the edges of the room, trying and failing not to favor his injured thigh. 

Afterwards they both head wordlessly down to the baths together. They’ve never bathed at the same time before— something that feels like a deliberate effort on Wolf’s part, but they are both filthy and exhausted, and neither of them mention it. The two of them strip without ceremony, sitting down on wooden stools and washing the worst of the dried blood and grime off themselves. The water runs almost black, then red, then finally clear. 

The stitches he’d put in Wolf are still there, useless now that Emma’s gourd has finished healing his wounds. Genichiro grabs one of Wolf’s knives and crouches in front of him; Wolf doesn’t tense, or recoil. He just sits up straighter, leaving himself open for Genichiro. It would be easy to bury the blade in his heart.

Genichiro won’t, and Wolf knows it.

The knife is viciously sharp, as Genichiro had known it would be, and the thread comes apart easily on its edge. Genichiro works his way through the stitches on Wolf’s chest, and then those on his thigh, frowning all the while. He can’t stop thinking of the way it felt to watch Wolf stagger his landings over tree branches the previous day, barely able to keep his feet. Watching him bleed, eyes gone hazy. 

The last time Genichiro saw Wolf die, it was on the end of Genichiro’s own sword. It had meant less than nothing, then. A show of strength.

A show of weakness. 

His stomach churns, and he swallows bile, and starts slowly pulling the thread out of Wolf’s skin. Wolf makes a face; it doesn’t hurt, Genichiro knows from experience, but it does feel strange. It is something Wolf would have masked, once. Something he would have hidden from Genichiro.

Genichiro wonders what Wolf is hiding, now. 

Wonders if it is anything like what Genichiro is hiding— unabashed want. Desperate affection. Genichiro has never been that lucky, though. He pushes the thought away for now.

They sink into the baths together, enough distance between them that Genichiro isn’t tempted to reach out and touch. Wolf is still moving stiffly, but the baths will take care of that better than anything else. Genichiro’s eyes catch on Wolf’s scars, barely noticeable in the low light. It would be hard to pick them out if Genichiro hadn’t put so many of them there himself. 

If he hadn’t traced them with his fingers, or mapped them out with his tongue. Wolf is all lithe muscle. His body was made to hold a sword, to swing an axe. Wolf was made for death.

Made for dying.

Wolf was made to fall and then rise, again and again, until the work is done.

His hair is wet, curling around his chin as he leans back against the rough edge of the bath. His eyes are closed, but when he opens them, he’s looking at Genichiro.

“Is something wrong?” Wolf asks finally, and Genichiro lets his eyes drift away. Lets them fall closed. Breathes out a sigh.

Ashina is fine.

There is only something wrong with Genichiro.

-

He doesn’t go to the dojo that night. Finding it empty would be painful, and Genichiro doesn’t know if he could bear it. It is for the best; he knows that Wolf is still hurting, still sore, but there is a violence lurking in Genichiro’s hands and his teeth and he doesn’t think he could be gentle with them. The Ministry is still hiding in the valleys.

Genichiro is reining in his best weapon, terrified of the damage it might do to itself.

A weapon that sits uneasy in his hand. A weapon that has cut him down before, and would cut him down again.

A weapon that doesn’t wound him, only because it isn’t allowed. 

-

Wolf comes to him in the temple the next day in his armor, Kusabimaru at his hip like a breath he is holding, waiting to be unleashed. Genichiro isn’t praying, but he is on his knees. It keeps most people from talking to him when he would prefer silence, but Wolf isn’t most people.

He knows Genichiro doesn’t pray.

Prayer is for those who fear death, or seek it. Genichiro is neither.

Genichiro is both.

“There are still Ministry soldiers in the valley,” he says. It isn’t a question, but Wolf waits for an answer.

Genichiro’s sword is sheathed on a rack in his quarters, oiled and sharp. Genichiro’s bow is beside it, strung and waiting for his hands.

Genichiro’s shinobi is hovering in the doorway; just as sharp. Strung just as tight.

So much less Genichiro’s.

“Go and take care of them, then.”

Wolf’s stillness is an unsettling thing. He cocks his head to the side, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword absently. It’s a comfort gesture, something Wolf does without thinking— reaching for his blade, the only safety he has ever known.

“Are you not coming with me?”

If Genichiro didn’t know better, it would sound vulnerable.

“Can you not manage it alone?” 

_ You don’t need me there,  _ Genichiro thinks, and it is true.

_ I don’t need you here,  _ Genichiro thinks, and it is a lie.

Wolf furrows his brows, worrying at Kusabimaru’s hilt with his thumb. The silence stretches on endlessly. Genichiro watches from the corner of his eye; he doesn’t look at Wolf.

He might not be able to turn away again.

“If that is what you want.”

All Genichiro knows how to want is Ashina. Everything else is more complicated, Wolf most of all.

“The Ministry is waiting.”

Wolf breathes out something that might be a sigh, and then he is gone, and Genichiro is alone.

-

One of Wolf’s bites is still etched into Genichiro’s throat, scabbed over and itching as it heals. There is a particularly deep bruise on the curve of his shoulder in the shape of Wolf’s mouth, a dozen shades of blue and violet fading into pink around the edges. He runs his fingers over them, presses until they sting. It is well past midnight.

Wolf should have come back by now.

Wolf shouldn’t have gone alone.

Genichiro stares at his ceiling, dark clouds rolling in over the castle. There is the distant crack of thunder, along with errant bursts of lightning. Genichiro cannot calm it once it has manifested in earnest; he must simply weather the storm like everyone else. He closes his eyes, throws an arm over his face. The castle is quiet.

Wolf is unobtrusive, but Genichiro feels his absence now. Like filth cleaned from a wound.

Like blood loss that suddenly leaves him dizzy.

Wolf is strong, and fast, but he cannot be invulnerable.

Genichiro doesn’t know how the dragon’s heritage works, really. What would happen if Wolf’s body was burned, or torn apart, or destroyed. Can he wake in pieces? The arm Genichiro took from him is still gone. Will always be gone. 

Will he come back with more things missing? His other arm, a leg, an eye. How much will Genichiro take from him? 

He wants to give him everything, now. 

Genichiro let him go face the Ministry without arrows, without lightning. Without Genichiro protecting his back. Without his fists, or his fury.

He is standing all at once and striding across the room towards the stand that holds his armor— the valley isn’t so far away that Genichiro can’t get there before sunrise.

Wolf isn’t so far away that Genichiro can’t try and bring him back.

Genichiro is yanking his armor off the stand when something catches his eye. There is a strange glow beside him; an unearthly blue, like a fog has rolled into his room and coalesced next to Genichiro. It thickens, and roils, warm as it coils around his feet. Genichiro reaches for it, and it reaches back, curling into his hands. It’s formless, and then there is a flash of light, and the taste of ozone.

Wolf is crouching in the center of the dissipating smoke, blood-soaked, a gory wooden Buddha idol clutched in his right hand. He is wild-eyed and panting, a shuriken held between his fingers, irises bright gold with something close to panic. Wolf’s gaze settles on Genichiro, and he lets out a ragged breath and falls to his knees. 

Genichiro has seen the idol before, amongst all Wolf’s gear when he cleaned his prosthetic, or sharpened his blades.

“I thought,” Genichiro starts, then swallows around the tightness in his throat. 

_ I thought you might be dead. _

“I thought that brought you to lord Kuro, or the temple,” he finishes instead, taking a stumbling step towards Wolf. The idol is mostly a mystery, like so many things about Wolf.

Wolf looks at it and shakes his head.

“I don’t choose where it takes me, it…” Wolf looks down at the Buddha, then up at Genichiro again. “It’s supposed to bring me home.”

Genichiro lets that land. Lets it sink in like rain on dry earth. Lets it soak into him like the waters— something that will catch, and hold, and never let go.

Then he makes a noise in his throat that is closer to a sob than words and tackles Wolf inelegantly to the floor. The idol flies out of Wolf’s hand, clattering across the wood as he reaches for Genichiro.

Genichiro takes Wolf’s face between his palms and kisses him. Wolf sucks in a surprised breath through his nose, eyes wide, frozen for a moment that drags on far too long before relaxing into it. He moans, and opens his mouth, letting Genichiro press deeper between his lips with a whine.

“Forgive me,” Genichiro murmurs into their kisses, brushing Wolf’s hair out of his face. He’s pawing blindly through Wolf’s clothes, feeling for injuries. “I was wrong to send you out alone.” 

Wolf huffs out a soft laugh, wincing when Genichiro’s fingers dig into his ribs.

“I am used to fighting alone.” It’s mumbled against Genichiro’s lips; he won’t draw back far enough to let Wolf really speak.

There’s blood on Wolf’s clothes that say otherwise. Blood on his face. Blood in his mouth.

“You’re wounded, and your gourd is empty, or else you wouldn’t be here. It is my fault.”

Wolf wraps his fingers around Genichiro’s wrist and eases it away from his injured ribs.

“It is no more your fault than my own. It is fine.  _ I  _ am fine, Genichiro. I am here, am I not?”

He is here.

His idol brought him to Genichiro.

Brought him  _ home. _

Genichiro tucks his face into Wolf’s neck, pressing gentle kisses from under his ear down the curve of his shoulder.

“I am sorry,” he whispers, like if he is quiet enough neither of them will hear. Wolf’s fingers find the scar on Genichiro’s chest where he’d buried his sword once upon a time. Where he’d sunk it in, and refused to yield.

“I am sorry, too,” Wolf says. “But enough of that.”

Genichiro is grateful; apologies have never been his strong suit. He isn’t good at giving them, isn’t good at receiving them. 

Wolf pulls Genichiro’s face up to kiss him again, and he lets the rest of it go. He’s still filthy from fighting, but Genichiro has never been bothered by such things, now least of all. 

He kisses Wolf until it hurts, and then he keeps kissing him, working off his armor without bothering to hide the tremble in his hands. Genichiro tucks his face into Wolf’s throat from time to time, to mouth at the skin but also to wipe away the wetness on his cheeks. It is hard to break away, but he does so for long enough to move Wolf onto his bedroll.

Then he is pressing into him with a gentleness that is as foreign as it is right, Wolf shuddering beneath him, both of them broken like they’ve never been. Genichiro whimpers, jaw shivering as grinds into Wolf. His eyes are eerie gold again, his teeth glinting sharp as he gasps. Wolf looks inhuman.

Wolf looks beautiful.

It is revelatory to have him here, open and soft and sobbing Genichiro’s name.

The Ministry is still lurking in the valley, but for now, they can wait. Ashina can wait. 

Wolf is here, and safe, and he is Genichiro’s. The idol is a few feet away, stained with Wolf’s bloody fingerprints, waiting to bring him home again.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for keio for commissioning me, and being endlessly rewarding to write for! 
> 
> Tell me nice things.


End file.
